SAS® predictive analytics help Healthways curb healthcare costs

SAS helps drive earlier, more tailored interventions to improve health

CARY, NC  (Apr. 14, 2008)  –  Healthways relies on SAS, the leader in business intelligence, to help identify people who would benefit from their preventive care services and achieve improved health outcomes. The US leader in Health and Care Support^SM for well and chronically ill populations achieves its objective using SAS Enterprise Miner™. The data mining software predicts hidden relationships in millions of member records to determine patient risk levels and develop more targeted intervention and prevention plans. 

“Healthways helps millions of people maintain or improve their health,” said Adam Hobgood, Director of Statistics at Healthways Center for Health Research in Nashville, TN. “SAS predictive analytics has the power to accommodate the massive volume of clinical and operational data used in our predictive models. Thanks to SAS, we can turn that data into evidence-based knowledge for predicting the groups of members in greatest need of our support programs. In addition, by identifying high-risk patients and implementing preventative actions against future conditions, we hope to head off the increased costs of care before they occur.” 

Using SAS Enterprise Miner, efficiency in comparing predictive models has allowed Healthways to accomplish in three days what would have taken weeks. SAS software’s user-friendly interface enables users with or without extensive programming experience to quickly perform sophisticated analysis. As a result, Healthways has increased its competitive advantage by helping employer groups and insurers improve member health outcomes and reduce escalating costs. 

“Healthways' solutions are designed to help healthy individuals stay healthy, mitigate and slow the progression of disease associated with family or lifestyle risk factors and promote the best possible health for those already affected by disease,” said Matthew McGinnis, Senior Director of Healthways Center for Health Research.“ The ability to zero in on the members who will benefit from our interventions will be even more critical in the next 10 years as the rates of obesity and chronic disease are expected to increase astronomically. Nurses, dieticians, respiratory therapists and behavior change experts become more effective as we uncover and deliver insights to them about member needs. SAS Enterprise Miner should continue to drive greater and greater efficiencies for our clinicians.” 

SAS Enterprise Miner is enhanced data mining software that combines a rich suite of integrated data mining tools with unprecedented ease of use, empowering users to explore and exploit corporate data for strategic business advantage all in a single environment. 

Using the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform as a foundation, SAS offers targeted business solutions that support enterprise intelligence, customer intelligence, financial intelligence, supply chain intelligence and more – as well as turnkey solutions for other vertical markets, such as financial services, health care, transportation, and manufacturing.

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